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Actor Matt Dillon 'heartbroken' after Myanmar voluntour trip

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Actor Matt Dillon was left "heartbroken" after visiting thousands of displaced and persecuted citizens of Myanmar during a recent humanitarian trip.

The Crash star was first introduced to the devastation in the western state of Rakhine by activist Thun Khin, who he met at a Refugees International fundraiser in Washington last month.

Khin told Dillon about the camps, and how he is a proponent for the Asian country's long-persecuted Rohingya Muslims, many of whom have been displaced by violence and forced to set up temporary homes at a camp near the sea.

Dillon was in Japan for work when he decided to visit Myanmar, and describes the situation as "heartbreaking" after seeing malnourished children, injured people with no access to medical treatment, and hundreds dehydrated.

He tells The Hollywood Reporter, "No one should have to live like this, people are really suffering. They are being strangled slowly. They have no hope for the future and nowhere to go... It affected me more than I thought it would."

With his visit, Dillon has become one of the first celebrities to put a spotlight on the nation, which has been discriminating against the Rohingya Muslims for decades.

After switching from a dictatorship to a democracy in 2012, members of the predominantly Buddhist country have been using their new freedoms against the Rohingya, denying them citizenship, as well as allegedly murdering hundreds and thousands more forced to live in the camps in hopes to flee the country.

Dillon, who has visited similar refugee camps in the Sudan and Congo, adds that this visit was something more dire than anything he's ever seen before.

He says, "I've been to some places where the threats of violence seemed more imminent. Here it's something else. It feels more like people are going to be left to wither away and die... A lot of people are suffering. I'm really glad I had a chance to come, to see for myself what's happening here."